3 Takeaways: Ross Bjork May 19 Teleconference
May 19, 2020 | General
Here's three takeaways from Ross Bjork's May 19 media teleconference...you can listen to the entire event through the link below.
Have you had any contact with any other athletic directors to make contingency plans in case one of the teams on your schedule can't play, to maybe fill it with somebody else?
"So, here's the deal on that. We know, sort of, that the flashpoints last week was the state of California in the PAC 12. I talked to both athletic directors at Fresno State and the University of Colorado. Their comments were 'we're coming to Kyle Field. Count on us being there.' So they plan on playing. I wouldn't say contingency plans, but I probably talk to or text 10-to-20 athletic directors a week, depending on you know the timing of those conversations or text messages. We all are aware of all the moving parts, but there's nothing that you can really put in in writing or have a backup plan, yet. There's just too much uncertainty, and it's way too early. But we're monitoring, right? We're monitoring the landscape of college football, monitoring fall sports and all those things. We see the news, just like you all do, but nothing has been put in place. And we're just going to stay in dialogue with my fellow colleagues."
Are you seeing after the last couple of weeks or so, where there's been a lot more openings, not just in Texas but around the country, or sensing an increased amount of confidence from the other AD's that this season is going to go off in a relatively orderly manner?
"There's a lot of confidence. In each day that goes by we get more positive data, and that's what we have to go on. We get more positive input from our health experts, so yes there's a lot of confidence moving forward. We need to continue this. We still need to do all the practices that are in place, but yes, there seems to be more confidence as the time goes on. You see universities talk about opening in the fall. I believe California, Florida, Texas and even New York talked about starting professional sports. You'll hear very soon, in New York and California especially, that there's a shift over the last couple of weeks. We're starting to see a lot more positive momentum and a lot more reopening of businesses, not only in our region but around the country. So, those are all positives."
"Right now, we're prohibited through the SEC from any activity until May 31. So the question is, what happens on June 1st? We don't have that clarity, yet, but there's ongoing conversations. We actually have an athletic directors meeting here today, and there'll be continued dialogue, continued conversation. We're hopeful that we can bring them back. And I say that the term 'bring them back' is a little bit of a misnomer. Really what we're talking about is opening up our facilities so that if they choose to come back, they can come back. Bringing them back, I think, is a much stronger term, because that makes it seem like we're requiring them to come back. What we're talking about here is voluntary activity. We want to open up our facilities for voluntary activity, because our state has opened up commercial fitness centers. Our university opened up the Campus Rec Center yesterday at 10 a.m. So, we want to open up our facilities. 'Bringing them back' I'm guilty of that, too, by using that term. But it's really about allowing them for voluntary activity, and we have a plan in place. We're ready to engage in that plan once we're given an 'all clear' through the SEC, and we're just having that on ongoing dialogue, as we speak."
I know we have a lot of talk about football, but soccer and volleyball are two seasons that should start before that. What is, kind of, the outlook on those two seasons, and where are y'all moving along on where those might be, come time to start getting ready for the season?
"Yeah, it seems like we're all focused on football. That's where the attention has drawn to, and we keep forgetting that 'oh by the way, we have three other fall sports: cross country, volleyball and soccer.' Volleyball and soccer check in about the same time as football, in terms of training camp. However, we have early exhibition games pretty much in the middle of August. The 17th or 18th of August, I believe, is our first soccer exhibition game. The same type of timeframes would apply to those sports, so we're looking at this holistically with all of our sports, especially the fall sports. Whether if there is a return to activity, if we could allow our weight rooms to be open on June 1st and that's still to be determined. We will look at this for all of our athletic teams but with particular focus on those fall sports. That's how we're approaching it, and we're keeping all of our coaches involved and included in the conversations."
"We know that the social distancing is the best practice. As we hopefully open up our weight rooms, we would have those type of practices in play. People keep talking about herd immunity. So if you have 120-125 football student-athletes, they're all around each other and we're all sort of in a similar community, are we somewhat protected? Do you have to have those socially distant parameters in place? Again, it's one of those things that's evolving. And I don't think we have a clear answer on exactly what you should do. I think the key for all of this, including our fans, is our job is to put in all the risk mitigation parameters and protocols that that we can responsibly do. And then we can't live in fear. We can't be paralyzed. We have to evolve into this and keep learning and understanding, while keeping people safe with all those risk mitigation parameters. That's our principal; that's how we're approaching this to that question. That'd be something that is yet to be determined until we all really kind of come back together."
Again, fans can access the entire teleconference audio in its entirety by clicking here.
1. Football Schedule Changes.
Have you had any contact with any other athletic directors to make contingency plans in case one of the teams on your schedule can't play, to maybe fill it with somebody else?
"So, here's the deal on that. We know, sort of, that the flashpoints last week was the state of California in the PAC 12. I talked to both athletic directors at Fresno State and the University of Colorado. Their comments were 'we're coming to Kyle Field. Count on us being there.' So they plan on playing. I wouldn't say contingency plans, but I probably talk to or text 10-to-20 athletic directors a week, depending on you know the timing of those conversations or text messages. We all are aware of all the moving parts, but there's nothing that you can really put in in writing or have a backup plan, yet. There's just too much uncertainty, and it's way too early. But we're monitoring, right? We're monitoring the landscape of college football, monitoring fall sports and all those things. We see the news, just like you all do, but nothing has been put in place. And we're just going to stay in dialogue with my fellow colleagues."
Are you seeing after the last couple of weeks or so, where there's been a lot more openings, not just in Texas but around the country, or sensing an increased amount of confidence from the other AD's that this season is going to go off in a relatively orderly manner?
"There's a lot of confidence. In each day that goes by we get more positive data, and that's what we have to go on. We get more positive input from our health experts, so yes there's a lot of confidence moving forward. We need to continue this. We still need to do all the practices that are in place, but yes, there seems to be more confidence as the time goes on. You see universities talk about opening in the fall. I believe California, Florida, Texas and even New York talked about starting professional sports. You'll hear very soon, in New York and California especially, that there's a shift over the last couple of weeks. We're starting to see a lot more positive momentum and a lot more reopening of businesses, not only in our region but around the country. So, those are all positives."
2. Fall Sports.
Do you have a timetable for bringing athletes back to campus, and what would that first step be?"Right now, we're prohibited through the SEC from any activity until May 31. So the question is, what happens on June 1st? We don't have that clarity, yet, but there's ongoing conversations. We actually have an athletic directors meeting here today, and there'll be continued dialogue, continued conversation. We're hopeful that we can bring them back. And I say that the term 'bring them back' is a little bit of a misnomer. Really what we're talking about is opening up our facilities so that if they choose to come back, they can come back. Bringing them back, I think, is a much stronger term, because that makes it seem like we're requiring them to come back. What we're talking about here is voluntary activity. We want to open up our facilities for voluntary activity, because our state has opened up commercial fitness centers. Our university opened up the Campus Rec Center yesterday at 10 a.m. So, we want to open up our facilities. 'Bringing them back' I'm guilty of that, too, by using that term. But it's really about allowing them for voluntary activity, and we have a plan in place. We're ready to engage in that plan once we're given an 'all clear' through the SEC, and we're just having that on ongoing dialogue, as we speak."
I know we have a lot of talk about football, but soccer and volleyball are two seasons that should start before that. What is, kind of, the outlook on those two seasons, and where are y'all moving along on where those might be, come time to start getting ready for the season?
"Yeah, it seems like we're all focused on football. That's where the attention has drawn to, and we keep forgetting that 'oh by the way, we have three other fall sports: cross country, volleyball and soccer.' Volleyball and soccer check in about the same time as football, in terms of training camp. However, we have early exhibition games pretty much in the middle of August. The 17th or 18th of August, I believe, is our first soccer exhibition game. The same type of timeframes would apply to those sports, so we're looking at this holistically with all of our sports, especially the fall sports. Whether if there is a return to activity, if we could allow our weight rooms to be open on June 1st and that's still to be determined. We will look at this for all of our athletic teams but with particular focus on those fall sports. That's how we're approaching it, and we're keeping all of our coaches involved and included in the conversations."
3. Social Distancing in Stadiums/Locker Rooms.
Do you feel like the guidelines that you guys are going to have to play may look similar to say, what we saw the Major League Baseball sequels have come out with, where players have to sit so far apart or I guess in a football instance stand so far apart? Do you anticipate similar guidelines to what we saw in that report?"We know that the social distancing is the best practice. As we hopefully open up our weight rooms, we would have those type of practices in play. People keep talking about herd immunity. So if you have 120-125 football student-athletes, they're all around each other and we're all sort of in a similar community, are we somewhat protected? Do you have to have those socially distant parameters in place? Again, it's one of those things that's evolving. And I don't think we have a clear answer on exactly what you should do. I think the key for all of this, including our fans, is our job is to put in all the risk mitigation parameters and protocols that that we can responsibly do. And then we can't live in fear. We can't be paralyzed. We have to evolve into this and keep learning and understanding, while keeping people safe with all those risk mitigation parameters. That's our principal; that's how we're approaching this to that question. That'd be something that is yet to be determined until we all really kind of come back together."
Again, fans can access the entire teleconference audio in its entirety by clicking here.
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